Why did NBC air The Office after the Super Bowl instead of [insert show name here]?

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Since it’s Thursday and the daily overnight posts still contain a lot of chatter about NBC airing The Office after the Super Bowl instead of some other show, and fearing this discussion could continue until the renew or cancel decisions for fall ’09 are announced, I figured I’d attempt to give that discussion its own home.

Some, like Nick C think NBC would’ve been better off airing Chuck in the post Super Bowl slot. Others think it should’ve aired the struggling Life, and I’m sure some wish it was Knight Rider.

Even Nick C estimates that NBC probably could make $5M-$10M more in short-term advertising by airing The Office instead of Chuck. In an economy like this, I don’t think the extra $5M-$10M is anything to sneeze at.

My theory — and it’s only a theory, Ben Silverman didn’t call to give me the scoop — is that NBC made it’s choice because:

it could make $5M-$10M more that way

it already plans to renew Chuck anyway and didn’t want to give the post Super Bowl slot to a show produced by Warner Brothers (Chuck)

it already plans to cancel Life, and didn’t want to give the post Super Bowl slot to a show it knows it’s going to cancel.

it didn’t really have anything else ready to go immediately

I’m sure that others have vastly different theories, but if the above is true (which we will never know), I can’t fault NBC for making the choice it made. But, I’m sure others can! I think NBC can certainly be faulted for not having anything else ready to go. The consensus either way seems to be it was a missed opportunity for NBC.

Nick C said if he were in charge, he’d have aired Kings in that slot, which is an interesting choice. It seems (at least based on rumors and speculation) that NBC has soured a bit on Kings, which will debut on Sunday March 15, and its new flavor of the day is Southland. If NBC had enough episodes to start airing Kings immediately and still make it through sweeps — which are in March this year — that would’ve been an interesting alternative.